I spent the weekend in Chicago, meeting and talking with 279 other financial bloggers. After years of saying we should all get together, we finally did (thanks to the hard work of Phil Taylor from PT Money). For three days, we talked about writing, marketing, and monetization. We also talked about how to make our blogs more useful to our readers.

I opened the conference by speaking about why we write. Why do we blog about money? Do we do it for the fame? The fortune? The fun? I think all of these are part of it, but I argued that the real reason we blog is because of you, the readers.

Your blog does not belong to you. Your blog actually belongs to your readers. Without them, you have no blog. If you want to grow your blog, to gain fame and fortune, let your readers have as much control as possible. I'm not saying you should allow a no-holds-barred free-for-all in the comments. I'm saying you should allow your readers to steer the blog's content and direction.

[…]

We're lucky. We don't have to choose between helping ourselves and helping others. We can do both. One of the things that makes personal finance blogging so awesome is that our interests and our readers' interests are often perfectly aligned. The more we show others how to achieve their financial goals, the more likely we are to achieve our own.

I also stressed the importance of story. I always stress the importance of story when I speak to bloggers. I think traditional financial media is too dry; it lectures. Blogs are great because they let us share real-life stories about money so that others can learn from our successes and failures.

One of the highlights of the show was listening to my friend and colleague (and former GRS staff writer) Adam Baker (Man vs. Debt) give his early morning presentation on designing and launching a product of your own. Baker crushed it.

Adam Baker talks about selling a product

Current GRS staff writer Donna Freedman (Surviving and Thriving) also spoke at the conference. Her presentation covered good writing skills. Donna is much taller than you probably imagine, but she's just as funny in person as she is on the web.

Donna Freedman talks about writing skills

On Saturday night, the second annual Plutus Awards were presented to the top financial bloggers. Get Rich Slowly won awards for the best-written personal finance blog and the best personal finance blog with multiple authors. It also won the award for blog of the year. It's a tremendous honor to have been selected for these; the experience was humbling.

I was pleased to see that Donna Freedman won the award for best blog contributor or freelance writer, and former staff writer Adam Baker won for best new personal finance e-book (Sell Your Crap).

Other voices
For me, the best part of any conference is meeting and talking with my colleagues. It's almost impossible to overstate how much I enjoy sharing tips and stories and ideas. The people I meet are universally amazing, and this weekend was no different.

Here are just a handful of the folks I met:

I met Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. In March, Crystal shared her reader story at GRS, describing how she avoided student loans. Crystal is awesome, and I loved hearing how she got started blogging. (Hint: It involved this GRS post.) In only eighteen months, she's gone from a $35,000/year CSR job to earning $6,000 to $10,000 a month writing online. If we're lucky, she'll share some more stories with us here in the future.

I also met GRS reader Suba and her husband (Mr. Suba). Suba has a site called Wealth Informatics, where she shares detailed discussions about personal finance. “I spend three or four days just researching each post,” she told me. She compiles data and drafts long posts to share the findings of her research. (I love this blogging model, and may actually adopt it myself in the future.)

Tom from MapleMoney has started to buy smaller sites from folks who are burned out on blogging. “If somebody will sell me a site for 1x to 2x annual profit, of course I'll buy it,” he said. “It's like I'm buying future income.” He now owns dozens of blogs, though only a handful produce any real money. Still, he's getting close to where he could quit his day job. “But I figure as long as I have my mortgage, I should keep working,” he said.

I also met Ryan from Cash Money Life. Ryan used to be an anonymous blogger (or semi-anonymous really), but at some point he decided to go public. “When I started using my real name, so many doors opened up,” he said. I'm a strong believer in transparency, so it was interesting to hear how being more open brought down barriers between Ryan and his readers — and gave him more opportunities outside his blog.

“It's true,” I said. “I have to carry it or I'll forget this stuff. Besides, everything is a blog post.” (Late on Saturday night, I confessed to Pete and several other bloggers that I have an obsession with wool clothing. “I have an entire blog post written about it,” I said, “but I don't think I'll ever post it.”)

Note: I also spent a lot of time talking with Tess Vigeland, the host of Marketplace Money. I've been listening to Vigeland's work on public radio since the early 1990s. Turns out we grew up in neighboring towns during the 1980s and graduated from high school just a year apart. Her parents still live just across the river from me here in Portland. Crazy!

“I think I know where they're going,” Will said. “Cat blogging is the future of the internet.” You know what? He may be right.

Thank you!
Finally, thanks to Phil Taylor from PT Money. It was his work and vision that pulled this conference together. We PF bloggers had talked about doing something like this for years, but nobody ever took the initiative until Phil made this his baby. It took him months of hard work to pull this off, but the result was worth it. Thank you, Phil. We personal finance bloggers are grateful.

PT Money prepping for the conference

Note: Tomorrow, I leave for a vacation in Peru. For five weeks, I'll be hiking in the Andes and sitting on the shores of Lake Titicaca. You can follow my adventures at Far Away Places, my travel blog. In the meanwhile, I've written plenty of posts for my absence, and April will be stepping into the role of editor. I'll pop in when I'm not out petting the llamas.

In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals.

It really was an amazing conference, and I enjoyed your speech. I learned an incredible amount over the weekend, and I was grateful I had a notebook with me! I had no idea so many speeches could be so engaging, I was so impressed.

Please do post about wool clothing! I love natural fabrics, wool for winter, linen for summer, cotton and silk for everything in between. Many people don’t know the benefits of wool or other naturals, so please post away! Love your insights.

Wealth informatics sounds like my kind of blog. I often find myself thinking, “but did you actually look it up? Did you ask anyone?” when reading articles that feel like they were thrown together with no research.

Besides that, I don’t think I’ve ever considered how tall Donna Freedman might be. I probably subconsciously expect most women I’ve never met to be about 5’9″, though — my wife is that tall.

I want Phil Taylor to have my children. He is an incredibly hard-working, far-seeing guy who put together an event that I believe was, for some, life-changing.
Thanks, Phil, for giving me my first shot at speaking at an event like this. I want to do it again.
And his conference staffers? Giants in the earth, too. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make the event such a robber of sleep. And my apologies to the Saturday front-desk staffers, who had to listen to us bark and blather in the lobby until 4 a.m. We should probably send them a fruit basket.

Donna, it was so much fun to meet you after reading your writing at MSN. You were truly a joy, and I loved hearing your stories in the wee hours of the morning with everyone else. So sorry you were robbed on the way to the conference, but it sure made for some good stories – and some good articles down the road -didn’t it?

Thanks, Donna. You blew people away with your talk. Tons of value for us all. Just like a blog, the conference was only as good as the content. And you certainly helped make it great. Thanks for all the feedback. Can’t wait for 2012 where I might actually be able to sit down and have a conversation with you.

Thanks for your kind words, Philip. You do realize that this was my first-ever public presentation, right? (Heck, I was so nervous I forgot to introduce myself!) But everyone did his best to help make me feel confident.
And I intend to hold you to that offer of a sit-down conversation. You can run but you can’t hide. ;-)

I can’t say enough about how great this conference was, between Phil and all the work he put into it, to all the great bloggers, authors and friends that I was able to meet. I can’t wait till next year.

I had an incredible time at the conference- meeting so many bloggers in person was inspiring. I was energized by Donna’s session on writing better. I’ve been a fan of her writing for some time, but she’s even more insightful and funny.

My challenge this week is to keep in touch with everyone I’ve met to get interviews done.

Wish I could’ve chatted with you J.D.- if you’re ever in Raleigh,NC please let me know! (That goes for all other pf bloggers :) )

JD, it was awesome meeting with you! When I checked in I glanced around and thought to myself ” is that JD Roth just sitting there?” You were the first PF Blogger I read and the main inspiration for starting a site myself.

And you are so down to earth! Thanks for answering my questions about Portland.

I loved your mention of Star Trek II in your talk. I agree it’s by far the best movie of them all.

To all of those wanting to see the post about wool: I changed it to have a bit of a travel theme (because, come on, I can’t justify posting it here) and have scheduled it to appear at my travel blog on October 15th (though that date may change)…

It was a great conference. I really enjoyed hearing you speak and your topic was so personal for me. The only reason I have ever blogged was to put a face to debt. I wanted and still want, people to see how debt can affect our lives.

Maybe next year we’ll get the chance to meet, I’ll be the one in the tiara.

I agree! The conference was amazing! And you started it out with a bang saying we need to keep the readers first. I think your talk really set the tone for the conference, so thanks!

Have fun in Peru! My parents own alpacas, which are in the same family as llamas. They got into the alpaca “business” as a tax deduction. Let me know if you ever want to know about investing in alpacas.

Did anyone else receive a ‘Personal Financial Calculator For Dummies’ in their swag bag? I tried it and it’s really awesome! Very helpful for personal finance calculations and situations. Any thoughts?

I was one of the group that stuffed the tote bags. The personal finance calculators did run out toward the end, but most people did get one.
Since I have a weekly giveaway on my website, my calculator will become a prize. I agree that it’s cool-looking — and here’s hoping whoever wins it from me USES it.

I looked into this product more, and after reading through the manual it can do a lot of calculations. I looked at this website too, http://www.victortech.com/dummies , and there is some more good information. Also, it’s available for sale on the website and on Amazon.com.

J.D! It was so great to officially meet you at FINCON! (Funny, I have to travel from PDX to Chicago to make that happen…) Thanks for your great speech and bringing Benny with you! Have safe travels in Peru. Hope we can meet up in PDX for a beer when you return so I can hear all about it!

The conference was a ton of fun for me mainly because of the people there at the conference. There were bloggers who I’ve known for 4-5 years and consider friends – who I now have forged an even stronger friendship. There are those who I barely knew, but who I now have a new friendship with. To me the relational aspect of the conference can’t be beat.

Of course the sessions were great as well – even if Benny the Klingon was a bit startling when he jumped up – I guess that’s the effect you were looking for anyway? For those haven’t seen Benny’s home tour in Klingon- it’s hilarious. @irishpolyglot on twitter if you want to track it down.

Lastly, it was a pleasure to finally meet you JD. I feel like I know a little bit about you from reading you for so many years, but it’s always a bit different and more fun to meet someone in real life. Fun chatting with you and a host of others on Saturday night – about wool clothing, trips around the world and cat blogging. Look forward to more chats – and reading about your upcoming trip soon..

I feel so lucky to have met some of my favorite bloggers in Chicago this weekend, and the sessions — including (especially!) yours, Adam Baker’s, Ramits, and many more, were incredibly valuable. Although I must admit, when Benny the Irish Polyglot jumped out of his audience chair halfway through your talk, a part of me wondered: “Is this staged, or is this guy just a nut?”

I can’t wait to continue relationships with many of the bloggers I’ve met, as we — together — see what the future of the internet holds. Cat blogging, here we come!

Thanks for a great write up, J.D. Certainly good to hear it from your perspective. And thanks again for your contribution. When people heard you were coming that totally legitimized the whole thing. I’m eternally grateful for you jumping on board with it. Best of luck on your travels.

Looks like I missed a hell of a conference. Great recap. Been reading a lot of reactions from my fellow bloggers. Your reputation proceeds you. But now that I know you had a Klingon during your speech, you really are a rockstar. Congrats on your well deserved awards, keep inspiring, and enjoy your trip to Peru!

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My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

General Disclaimer: Get Rich Slowly is an independent website managed by J.D. Roth, who is not a trained financial expert. His knowledge comes from the school of hard knocks. He does his best to provide accurate, useful info, but makes no guarantee that all readers will achieve the same level of success. If you have questions, consult a trained professional.

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